Famous Gardeners

Famous gardeners from the gardening Hall of Fame - a brief introduction; an overview of what motivated them in their search for exotic plants, shrubs and trees that are now common-place.

Gardenening like any other hobby has its own Hall of Fame of famous gardeners. It is filled with a variety of stoic gardeners, plantsmen and women, geniuses, aristocrats, workers and dreamers. Famous gardeners' achievements have been equally varied, some have travelled the world enduring unimaginable hardship collecting plants, other famous gardeners have created gardens that draw visitors by the million, and a few have been inspired to create a new style of gardening that has changed the way we view gardening for ever.

Famous Gardeners: Plant Hunters
The plant hunters of the past were not all famous gardeners themselves; some worked tirelessly for patrons or horticultural societies to earn a living and only became known as famous gardeners centuries later. It is to these plant hunters that we owe our basic garden flowers. The first to appear in our Famous Gardeners Hall of Fame were theose adventurous spirits of the Renaissance -
 
Pierre Belon
Pierre Belon: famous gardener in the 16th century the French naturalist Pierre Belon travelled through Greece,
Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia and Palestine, and the Austrian de Busbecq brought
tulips and other plants back from Turkey.


John Tradescant
17th Century

In the 17th Century, our famous gardeners went even further afiield for instance the Tradescants collected plants and shrubs from Russia and the New World while another famous gardener, Kaempfer, collected plants from Japan.
John Tradescant: Famous Gardener
  John Tradescant


John Bartram In the 18th Century the numbers of plant hunters increased: John Bartram (shown here in a wonderful drawing of the age) was the first of the American plant hunters;

Tournefort travelled to the near East, Masson brought back pelargoniums from South Africa and Cunningham and d'Incarville introduced Western gardeners to the wondrous flora of China.

                                  

  

The 19th Century
famous gardeners and plantsmen and women were treated to new wonders from China (Robert Fortune),
South America (von Humboldt) and Australia (Cunningham and Drummond).
 
David Douglas
In 1825 David Douglas was another famous gardener in the making when the Horticultural Society of London sent him to North America and the flowers, shrubs and trees he collected are considered to have had more effect on our gardens than the discoveries of any other plant hunter.   


David Douglas: Famous Gardener

                                          

The search for new plants goes on, E.H. Wilson and George Forest brought back plants from the Far East at the beginning of the 20th Century and even today expeditions travel to the remoter parts of the globe in search of new species tof plants, shrubs and trees to enthrall modern famous gardeners.

Famous gardeners often worked tirelessly for little reward but they are now remembered in the Latin plant names that are used throughout the world to identify their specimens.
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